AFRICA: ‘Bicycles Are For Good

21062011

Great read over at World Streets Blog, these are a few good quotes straight away, but the article is quite a bit longer.

“Politicians may tell us that bicycles are a sign that we are not advancing,” says Patrick Kayemba, managing director of the First African Bicycle Information Organization in Uganda, “but we ourselves have seen that cycling is a socio-economic tool. It works now – we don’t have to wait for someone to rescue us with better public transport, better this, or better that…”

So it seems as though politicians the world over have an agenda to eliminate cycling as more than a hobby.

“A bicycle in Africa means access,” Kayemba told an international cycling planning conference audience in Seville, Spain in March 2011. “You have a bicycle, you have access to income, clean water, social services, different places of work, a means to carry goods,” he said. “It is not for leisure, it is not for reducing weight – here, a bike is life.”